Bats: Flying Wonders?

[Pentarctagon]

I rarely want bats to die, mainly because I choose them as my SurvialXtreme character 90% of the time.

They're uses in PvP may be debated, but you can't deny their SX uses.

while they are useful because of their 60% dodge and resistances, they are somewhat weak and start off with a lower attack power than other units forcing you to spend more money on them. also, drain is a forbidden weapon special now, so that is gone also.

[Araja]

What do you mean drain's gone, I played three SX matches just a few days ago that all had full bats in...
Forbidden weapon special?...Weird :/

[Demystificator]

I prefer ghost than Bats. I think bats are so weaker to be goods. Ghosts need to be focused cause they got grat resistance too, more hp and defend himself everytime (and upgrades rock).

Btw, I should try use more Bats. For the moment, when I used it like scout, they died early and I lost some villages (other are slows).

Actually, they're good spies.

[Eskon]

If you use a unit as scout properly, you usually don't lose it

[Pentarctagon]

though admittedly scouts are not the studiest of units...unless you use woses for scouts, but that wouldn't work out to well most of the time.

[Eskon]

The point is that units with high movement will generally dip forward to discover wide parts of the enemies' unit placement, and then pull back out of reach. Basically, if your enemy can catch your scout unit, you either did something wrong or used it as distraction anyway. Their movement points are critical to their survival, arguably more so than their HP, resistances or defenses.

[Araja]

Can't quote in edits for some reason:

Ghosts need to be focused cause they got grat resistance too, more hp and defend himself everytime

It's also half again as expensive, slower, and has 2 moves over water, but yes if your enemy catches the scout it will fight better...although I'm unsure how important combat skill is to a scout, as Pentarctagon said.

[manored]

If you use bats right, the only thing that has a chance of getting then is a gryphon rider. Even cavalry can be avoided by moving upon unpleasant terrain. Keep the bat out of harm's reach all the time and it survives the whole match

And yes, they are excellent spies.

[Pentarctagon]

a really fun thing to do if there's a bat running around behind ur lines: put a wose in a forest next to a village. bat takes village and gets ambushed by the wose. the bat will then usually die because of wose's huge impact attack + the bat's weakness to impact . also, if you get lucky and your opponent forget to move their bat and your mage catches up to it...

If you use bats right, the only thing that has a chance of getting then is a gryphon rider. Even cavalry can be avoided by moving upon unpleasant terrain. Keep the bat out of harm's reach all the time and it survives the whole match

that's assuming that there is only one unit chasing you or it's a huge map. also, an elvish scout can keep up with a bat since the elvish scout actually has one more base move than bats do, as well as only one movement cost over forests. it also has a ranged attack, so it won't even have to melee the bat and risk getting drained.

[Skrim]

I prefer ghost than Bats. I think bats are so weaker to be goods. Ghosts need to be focused cause they got grat resistance too, more hp and defend himself everytime (and upgrades rock).

Btw, I should try use more Bats. For the moment, when I used it like scout, they died early and I lost some villages (other are slows).

Actually, they're good spies.

Ghosts don't actually have great resistances. Seeing as they cost 20 gold apiece and have only 18 HP, I'd say that their 50% resistances against physical damage types is just a stand-in for their low HP.

The same effect could be achieved by having a unit with 36 HP, 0% resists to physical damage, a 40% fire weakness, 20% cold resistance and 60% arcane weakness. The only thing achieved by having less HP and more resistance is that village-healing and drain-healing act faster.

[thespaceinvader]

Hosts have low HP, rreasonable resists, but importantly, they have draining attacks. Wraiths and Spectres in particular become absolute tanks at night, particularly against enemies weak to arcane. They're dang near invincible against trolls...

[Eskon]

I don't think hiding a 20 gold wose in a forest to wait for a 13 gold bat to appear is a worthwhile use of gold Even if you do try that, let it be night and the wose needs to hit twice to kill the bat. It's much easier to both control villages and threaten the enemy's main force with an archer. Add your obligatory elvish scout (which is otherwise largely useless against undead) and you can usually kill and at least kill most bats who try dumb [censored] while having your forces near your frontlines.

In most maps villages deep inside a player's territory are regular village terrain - if the enemy has his units nearby it's usually a dead bat (and they are less expendable than most of your other undead units if you broke the income threshold!). Bats stealing villages usually is only a advantageous tactic in connection with an invasion. If properly deployed, it will either distract enemy units away from their defensive duties, or get you free gold. Used in this manner a village stealing bat is more than just a minor annoyance, and definitely worth every bit of its recruit cost.

Ghosts are a pretty peculiar unit. I'd say on pretty much every map you should definitely rather recruit a bat initially, only for the fact that 13 gold and no income is much, much safer to invest in a unit that might be worthless apart from scouting (and they do the scouting part much, much better, because they don't get whiny when they see a large body of water or, god forbid, a blooping river). But there are definitely situations in which I'll consider recruiting a ghost - they block well against melee, and have good defense on flatland squares. Against a knalgan player who recruited several ulfserkers in hopes of scoring free dark adepts I'd definitely get a ghost. Ulfserkers can run from skeletons at night (or day, skeletons are extreme ulfserker counters), but they cannot run from a ghost!

[Pentarctagon]

don't think hiding a 20 gold wose in a forest to wait for a 13 gold bat to appear is a worthwhile use of gold Even if you do try that, let it be night and the wose needs to hit twice to kill the bat.

while that is very true, if i am already winning and he/she gets a bat behind my lines, it's a funny thing to do because they think they got past me and now they can screw up my income by taking all my villages-AMBUSHED!

and they do the scouting part much, much better, because they don't get whiny when they see a large body of water or, god forbid, a blooping river

i've always wondered, why do ghosts get worse movement on water? they just float above/through stuff, what difference is it that they are now floating over water instead of a mountain?

[Turuk]

i've always wondered, why do ghosts get worse movement on water? they just float above/through stuff, what difference is it that they are now floating over water instead of a mountain?

Reasons not always based on realism, but for balance purposes.

[PsychoticKittens]

Don't some cultures have ghosts guided over water by little candle boats? Maybe they get lost. Poor ghosts, bout as bad a sense of direction as me.

There's also the chance that they're a vaporous entity and the evaporating water mixes with them and messes with their incorporeal form so they can't hold together (or move) as well.

Imagination~